IIT Madras Launches Shell Energy Research Centre

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) Energy Consortium and Shell India have partnered to launch the ‘Shell IITM Centre for Energy Research’ (SICER). The inauguration ceremony, which took place at the Shell Technology Centre in Bengaluru on 22 May 2024, marks a significant milestone in collaborative research and strategic engagement between academia and industry.

The collaboration will be centralised under SICER for five years and will promote innovation, research, development, piloting and commercialisation of technologies in the energy sector.

The key outcomes envisaged include research collaborations in critical challenges and opportunities in the energy transition space, incubation of energy start-ups by leveraging the start-up ecosystem of IIT Madras and the Shell Chair Professorship which will act as a bridge and enable knowledge exchange between Shell and IIT Madras, along with the continuation of Shell’s participation in the Energy Consortium.

As part of the initiative, Satyanarayanan Seshadri was announced as the first-ever Shell Chair Professor at IIT Madras. He is the Head of the Energy Consortium at IIT Madras and a faculty member in the Department of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering at IIT Madras. He brings with him a wealth of expertise. His leadership will prove crucial in guiding research activities at the new centre and fostering collaboration between academia and industry.